ASP – Access to path * is denied

I was trying to write to a file in ASP.Net and was getting the following error:

Access to the path “D:\WEB\******\dump.csv” is denied.
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path “D:\WEB\******\dump.csv” is denied.

ASP.NET is not authorized to access the requested resource. Consider granting access rights to the resource to the ASP.NET request identity. ASP.NET has a base process identity (typically {MACHINE}\ASPNET on IIS 5 or Network Service on IIS 6) that is used if the application is not impersonating. If the application is impersonating via <identity impersonate=”true”/>, the identity will be the anonymous user (typically IUSR_MACHINENAME) or the authenticated request user.

To grant ASP.NET write access to a file, right-click the file in Explorer, choose “Properties” and select the Security tab. Click “Add” to add the appropriate user or group. Highlight the ASP.NET account, and check the boxes for the desired access.

I thought this would be an easy fix. I added the permissions that the error specified but that did not fix the problem. In addition to the {MACHINE}\ASPNET account you also need to give permission to the NETWORK SERVICE account to the file/directory. Hope this helps you too 😉